Friday, March 13, 2015

The Outcomes of Isolation

By Conor King Devitt

It’s going to be a marathon. Our expedition to the Galapagos
begins on Friday evening with a 1.5 hour cruise north to Spokane. At 7 the next
morning, we’ll fly three hours to Minneapolis, where we’ll change planes and
soar 2.5 hours south to Atlanta. From here, we’ll hop on a 757 and jet 5.5
hours down to Quito, Ecuador. After spending a night in Quito, we’ll fly an
hour to Guayaquil, Ecuador, where I assume we’ll be swept of invasive species
and fumigated before our last leg. From Guayaquil it is a two hour hop to the
island of San Cristobal, our toilsome final destination.

I’ve experienced grueling, cross-hemisphere travel before,
and I’m thankful this time I’ll be going with a partner – one of the college’s
skilled senior videographers, Marc Wai. The last time I didn’t have that
luxury. The last time, I went alone.

Weirdly, this will be the second occasion in two years I’ve
embarked on a lightning-paced trek into the South Pacific. My first trip was a
whimsical journey of self-discovery, an adventure that led me to another one of
the globe’s most iconic and storied islands.

It was the summer after sophomore year, and I was working
85-hour weeks as deckhand on a small cruise ship that paddle-wheeled its way up
and down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. I was making good money – more than I
had expected, and realized I would have some splurge-worthy income sitting in
my bank account by the end of the season.

I started looking into different travel opportunities. I
wanted a prize – something that would keep my eyes focused and forward. Twelve
hour days of manual labor under the violent, southern sun often made it hard to
not think about quitting, and a non-refundable treasure at the end of the hunt
insured I wouldn’t act on those impulses.

I also needed a purifier. Like others working in fishing
industries, coal mines, aggressive car dealerships or anywhere were the balance
between work and life is skewed, our social existence was a rollicking,
unhealthy one, burdened by riverfront booze and fueled by nicotine and scorched
coffee. After a summer of harsh living, I needed to get away, clear my head and
cleanse myself in wholesome adventure.

I chose Easter Island, a location I’d been fascinated by for
years. I wanted to gaze at the stone head statues, bathe in the extreme
isolation and surf off of the sandy beaches. Known as Rapa Nui by the locals,
the island is home to the most remote airport on Planet Earth, more than 2,300
miles west of the coast of Chile.

A few weeks of work and four plane rides later, I was there.
And it was everything I hoped it would be. Amazing people, eerie history,
majestic views and wine-fueled Polynesian dancing.

On my third afternoon, a few fellow travelers and I rode
horses across a northeastern strip of the island. Accelerated by our
tongue-clicking guide, who would spur us on by whipping a slim stick into the
rumps of our steeds, we loped up the biggest hill on Rapa Nui. The highest
point was marked by a rock cairn, and every degree of the circular view around
it was dominated by an endless wall of sapphire ocean water.

You could see the whole island, green and barren. Maoi
statues, facing inward, looked over sites where settlements once stood. Patches
of young trees formed a few small stripes over otherwise empty grassland. The
isolation was overwhelming. It was an island stripped of its resources, stark
and independent in the sprawling desert that is the Pacific Ocean.

Rapa Nui was once the proud home of 15,000 Polynesian inhabitants and a
vibrant, powerful culture. Using logs to roll gargantuan pieces of rock down
from a central quarry, the islanders managed to construct some of the world’s
most awe-inspiring, pre-industrial wonders – the Moai statues, towering stone
heads that guarded the civilization and displayed its prominence.

However, construction of the statues eventually led to the
decimation of the island’s natural resources. Civil wars broke out, violence
and poverty reigned true and the population plummeted. By the late 19th
Century, historical reports account for little more than 100 natives living on
the island, all clinging on to the last threads of a civilization that
metaphorically (and, by some reports, literally) ate itself.

Comparing my last Pacific island destination with my future
one presents a sharp contrast of symbolic irony. One is a haunting showcase of
the indomitable human desire to consume and conquer, a contained and cautionary
tale of the apocalyptic gluttony of our own species.

The other is an exhibit of isolated natural harmony, where
species and plants show off the vibrant results of evolution free from human
and continental influences. It is a place of both beauty and biology, where the
field of evolutionary science has made great strides observing an ecosystem at
lonely peace with itself.

Despite that harmony, Darwin’s islands are also places of
great fragility. As the archipelago becomes exposed to modern travel
capabilities, and the resulting boats and planes full of hungry tourists (of
which I am one) introduce harsh continental realities to its shores, many have
become worried. Thousands of minds in the fields of science, politics and money
have joined together to prevent and repeal the devastating biological invasions
introduced by humanity. They work because they have a fear. They do not wish to
see the tortoise and finch-clad hills of the Galapagos evolve into the
treeless, statue-dotted grasslands of Rapa Nui.

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About the Program

The Murrow Backpack Journalism project enlists smart, dedicated and curious student-journalists to travel into some of the world’s most remote regions to report on stories that count.

These student-journalists are eye-witnesses to world events. They are on-scene where and when the news is being made.

As a backpack journalist, students are outfitted with—and trained in the use of—the latest video, audio and web technology. They’re sent into the field to create television, radio, web and print news reports which are disseminated to broadcast and print organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest.